Obviously, a home charger is not going to suit everybody, but around 60% of UK homes have some sort of off road parking. I presume that the manufacturers would consider that the demographic they are aiming at would be less likely to live in a terraced house.
That’s a bit patronising. Not all terraced houses are impoverished slums ...
Why is it patronising?
Because I read an implication in your comment that people who live in terraced houses (and flats, and other types of older high-density accommodation) were considered second-rate when it comes to EV ownership. If that wasn't intended, then I did indeed get the wrong end of the stick. Fact remains that just about all the terraced housing stock round here (and there's a lot of it in Bath, not just the kind of properties in my tongue-in-cheek link) is rammed nose to tail with parked cars (and they are all residents because of residents-only restrictions), so there are an awful lot of car-owners who live in terraced houses for whom EV ownership will be hugely problematic.
As for the podpoint article, that's interesting but has all kinds of holes in it. Just to take a few:
- The PWC article cited as the source of their stats is not available so can't be checked.
- Workplace charging: this is being actively reduced in a drive to reduce car use, such that new developments are being built with no, or very reduced, parking.
- On street charging: poses all kinds of issues in actually installing the charge points in older streets, some of which I hinted at previously. But there's a social issue with shared charging facilities: if your car finishes charging when you're doing something else (or at 3.00 am), would you go and move it? The current selfish "me first" attitude throughout society suggests many people wouldn't even if it causes hardship for someone else.
- The article misses the reliability issue. Too many 1st person accounts describe malfunctioning chargers when they arrive, so network owners like podpoint and their peers need to put very much more resource into maintaining the infrastructure so that users have a better chance of finding a charge point that's actually working when they need it.
- Security. I'm supposed to leave my expensive EV in a public car park that may be a long way from home whilst it charges? Obviously anyone proposing that has (a) never actually been in one of those car parks overnight (they're very unsafe-feeling places!) and (b) has never suffered the outrage of having a car stolen (you tend to want to keep an eye on it!).
That'll do. I still feel that there are no viable plans to encourage car-owners without off-street parking to make the switch to EVs, even f they might want to (as I do).